Masquerade
by Amles80
Summary: It's Halloween, and someone hosts a party. Noah is invited, and so is Angela...


The house has towers, narrow corridors, half-hidden doors, sometimes creaking floors, unexpected rooms, dark corners, velvet curtains and windows that let the moonlight in.

Is that a bat flying outside, or a crow? Surely, that was just a dog howling?

There are lanterns hanging from the otherwise empty branches of the trees outside, and pumpkins with candles in them border the road up to the house. The house is full of people. The house is big enough for people to get lost in it, be it by accident or in search of privacy.

It isn't possible to keep track of everyone, not even for a trained eye, because all of them are dressed up, most of them even with masks. Some of them are dancing one moment, the next they are standing in a corner, drinking.

That oriental prince, as if sprung from the pages of _Thousand and One Night, _where did he go? Did he follow that scarecrow upstairs? Wasn't he just dancing with the pirate with the big black mask that covers his eyes and his forehead? The pirate who a moment ago was drinking with that slim blonde, covered from head to toe with a scarlet devil's suit, now dancing with a veiled ghost lady…

They laugh, they spin round and round…

There are zombies, there are vampires… even the Reaper walks around among various undefined undead creatures, one ghost can even walk through walls, and some of them are very young; not very scary, but if they say "boo", you have to pretend to be scared, because you don't want to hurt their feelings. It's their party, too. They are running around eating popcorn and candy; Noah tries to remember their names – they are probably called things like Molly, Micah, Monty… Matty…

They are all there. All of them. Noah is aware, in some corner of his mind, of the fact that this shouldn't be possible. And even if it is possible, then he wouldn't want to be there, because that 'pirate', isn't he – but was that Nathan Petrelli laughing, to one of Linderman's jokes? The woman entertaining people by juggling with fire out on the terrace, is that Meredith?

Noah has drunk just a little too much; right this moment, he can't remember clearly who invited him. He can't see his wife, an enchanted fairy, anywhere.

Then he sees her.

Not his wife the fairy, but the other woman. She is wearing a golden mask, but he recognizes her. A tiara with shiny diamonds crowning her black hair, a midnight blue satin gown is not hiding but accentuating her figure.

Her fingernails are long and red. She smiles, touching his face lightly with her fingertips, and says:

"Welcome to the party, Noah."

"Angela", he says, "may I have this dance?"

They are dancing. In the middle of this crowd of people – friends, enemies, long-lost loved ones – they are dancing, and he holds on to her body lightly but firmly. Should anyone come to snatch her away from him, he will be ready. But the Godfather Petrelli looks the other way.

The ballroom has mirrors with golden frames and he can see them reflecting as they swirl on, dancing past the French windows, the pedestals with grinning pumpkins and chandeliers.

Angela laughs,

"Faster, Noah, don't hold back!", and the black cape is like a pair of wings behind him and the candles are almost burning them when they get a little too close.

They dance their way out of the ballroom and all the way to the end of the corridor, but as they can still hear the music, they dance all the way up the winding staircase which, by a lucky chance, is empty; they meet no one on their way up.

They can still hear music and the sound of voices on the second floor, but they go up, and the lights are not as numerous up on the third floor, but they go on, and on the fourth floor where fewer candles are lighting up the corners and where they hear no music, they stay.

The thick carpet on the floor swallows the sound of their steps, and Noah walks as if he has been there before, past door after door, and for each door they pass he can feel his excitement growing stronger.

This is dancing without music, if it is dancing at all.

And then – Angela opens a door, and the room is dark but the moon is shining in behind the curtain, and the room is warm, but not as warm as Angela's breath when she reaches up to whisper something in his ear.

"This is the night when the boundaries between the worlds are open and free for all to pass…"

"Am I dreaming?" he says.

Angela shakes her head.

"So we are awake?"

Again, she shakes her head.

"Then, this is not real?"

"Of course it is real, Noah!" she says, and he has to believe her; he knows her voice and he has known it for years; he cannot doubt her.

"Take off my mask", she says.

He takes off her mask and he sees that her eyes are deep as the night. He looks her in the eyes when he kisses her softly, almost as if he has done it before but he knows that he has not. Not while being fully awake, while not dreaming.

The scent of her hair is full-bodied and rich like that of a matured wine; ripe, sweet, spicy.

Angela unties the knot of his black cape and it falls to the floor with a soft flutter. The scarlet fingernails are unbuttoning his shirt, but slowly and it is making him shiver. The shirt goes the same way.

Noah is fingering Angela's neckband, his fingers trace her spine through the thin cloth, his hands stroke up and down her sides, but nowhere is a button, a zipper, a hook and eye, an opening to be found.

Angela says:

"Just rip it."

For the rest of his life, the sound of a rustle will be midnight blue to him; it will have the scent of Angela's skin and feel like satin.

The next morning, he wakes up with a light headache and he hears the sound of raindrops on the window.

The pillow under his head feels familiar. The texture of the sheets his body is wrapped in feels familiar; nothing like the sheets of last night. Noah opens his eyes and finds that he is in his own bed, in his own home and not in that big strange house, and he is alone.

So it was a dream, he thinks, of course it was. How could it be anything else; Halloween or not…

Then, as he turns his head, he sees something on the bedside table that he is pretty sure shouldn't normally be there.

A golden mask.


End file.
